Lambda School was great for me. You get out of it what you put into it. Why are there never stories like these about specific university programs with higher opportunity cost and financial cost?
Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
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Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#92"Lambda School placed only 30% of its 2020 graduates in qualifying jobs during the first half of 2020. This figure is in stark contrast to the 74% placement rate it advertised for its 2019 graduates"
It's almost as if something happened in 2020 that reduced the number of open positions available...
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
One huge mistake I think a lot (but not all of) the bootcamps are making is taking the easy route of simply using JavaScript to teach both frontend and backend. JavaScript is a TERRIBLE first programming language. I usually have to spend 2-3 sessions per mentee explaining the idiosyncrasies of JavaScript, where some of the OOP concepts actually come from, and how things work in other languages to put into context the…
I agree with this. It seems like they should start with python or even java to learn the basics in a relatively straightforward environment, but one that also implements a lot of constructs in a fairly standard way. They also both have well-documented and large standard libraries. I feel like they should spend a bit of time on that, and then switch to JS, which is relevant for so many jobs these days.
Python and Java are probably just as bad as Javascript. I started with Javascript (and self taught) and never had many issues. Javascript is very easy to get running and play around.
With Java you will spend a huge amount of time on pointless ceremony that can seem important to a beginner but is really pedantic enforcement of programming preferences from the Java designers (everything is a class for example).
With Python you have a pretty easy language but the dependency management situation is a disaster. Python in a Google Colab notebook where everything is pre-installed could be good.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#94I was at Lambda when they announced the switch from 9 to 6 months and the elimination of paid team leaders. The feedback was universally negative. In a channel for open student discussion, Austen Allred deleted a poll from Slack because of how lopsided the reaction was. He explained the deletion by saying the poll was "misleading." Students then got a survey "explaining" why the change was actually a good thing by as…
Why don't companies just speak plainly about these kinds of changes? "We are doing this to cut costs, which we need to do to [Survive/Buy a Yacht/Whatever]" People tend to be really understanding when you are brutally honest, and brutally cynical when you bullshit them even a little.
That might work if its a few decisions here and there that look like they're being taken with much gravitas.
But I'm not sure that would work if you're pivoting constantly and in a downward spiral. There are simply too many decisions happening for "we need to cut costs" to feel valid all the time. Lambda school appears to be in that category so far as I can see.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#95Hi I wrote this piece and am perhaps still better known here as the founder of CoderPad, etc. I'm happy to answer any questions throughout the day, so long as they are on-topic and civil.
Just wanted to say I'm a big fan of your journalism and CoderPad.
One question I have about this: Do you think Lambda is uniquely problematic in this space or are they perhaps a more typical case? Are others worse?
Anecdotally, back in 2019 I asked our internal recruiter to reach out to Lambda school to see about graduate resumes sent our way for jr software development positions. He emailed them but claims they weren't terribly responsive and never sent him any candidates. At the time, we just assumed fancy startups were getting first pick. Now I think the well was dry.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#96As the landscape gets more competitive, the promises will only get larger leading to lots of disappointed students sadly
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#97Hi I wrote this piece and am perhaps still better known here as the founder of CoderPad, etc. I'm happy to answer any questions throughout the day, so long as they are on-topic and civil.
I've loved the interviews you've done. You're one of the sane people in this industry. Do you have a podcast or are you considering starting one?
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#98> “Danner, who invested $1 million shortly after Lambda School's Series A, compared the complaints to his own experience launching the charter school Rocketship Education, which received public backlash for teaching elementary-school students on laptops without instructors for part of their day.
"They said we were experimenting on the backs of children," Danner said.
"But when SpaceX launched their first five rockets and they blew up, was that OK?" he continued. "We're in a more high-stakes world of human development. Still, you can't say that you don't like the way things are but don't want people to try new things."
This is one of the problems of mixing VCs in the education space. “Move fast and break things” doesn’t work when the “things” are humans, not code and technology.
Also, last time I checked, SpaceX wasn’t promising 80% of its rockets would work back in its early days.
Good ol’ fashion false equivalency.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#99I come from the failed Lambda School UX program. It wasted more than a year of my life. And to add insult to injury, after having succeeded in learning UX on my own + finding employment, I now send them a mortgage payment's worth of $$$ every month, until I reach that $30k limit. What a damn scam.
I wonder how many university students are jealous of you? I spent three years doing a Bachelor of Engineering, which I consider three years lost. The piece of paper got me a job, but I certainly felt I was less valuable after finishing the degree than I was before it (negative learning is a thing).
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not teach them functional concepts (map, filter, reduce, etc are well supported and comfortable) and leave the horrors of Js classes alone?
They run into enough problems with objectness just learning map / filter / reduce. I've seen so many angry / frustrated students trying to use a for each loop to iterate over an Array only to find that although this works in most languages, in js these just loop over the fucking KEYS of the object (which now opens up the discussion about how `obj[1]` is not a key but `obj['hey']` is a key and the differences therein.
I wonder if there would be a market for a "stricter mode" version of JavaScript that simply does not allow you to use the legacy features that are so quirky.
Eg just disallow for...in to be used at all (but allow for...of)
No iterating over objects except via eg Object.entries
No inheriting objects from other objects (ie no prototypal inheritance)
No var
No anonymous functions (ie only named function declarations or lambda/fat-arrow expressions, to avoid `this` binding gotchas)
Etc
I think the only real big blocker to a thing like this is that it'd need tooling (eg a transpiler that injects error throws at appropriate places), and tooling is another big hairy thing that makes JS less approachable for beginners.